There is a desire for colour, artisan styles, warmth, and lightweight materials that adapt to seasonal menus. Now that hospitality is back in a big way, it is changing its look and expressing a desire to look positively to the future. And that also involves something that is a litmus test for the sector: the place setting.

“Despite economic uncertainties, the hospitality sector in the Benelux region continues to perform well. We predict that colourful tableware & eccentric shapes will stay very popular in 2023,” says Anne Kemp, marketing assistant of the Luxembourg-based RAK Porcelain Europe, whose main foreign markets are France, Spain, Germany and Italy.

As for the most sought-after trends: “As well as colourful tableware and eccentric shapes, also materials with an artisanal, craft spirit like stoneware. But customers are constantly searching for lighter materials to facilitate the dinner service, so super lightweight materials such as bone china are very popular.” One of Rak Porcelain’s best-selling product is the coupe plate. “The coupe shape helps clients present and plate their dishes in a tasteful way. It is also very resistant, easy to care for and attractive.” Other popular products include stoneware collections which “exude that beautiful and much sought-after craft feeling.”

There will be a lot of coloured tableware around in 2023, believes Timo Keersmaekers, CEO of the Belgian company Fine Dining & Living. “In the past it was not so much the base material but the design that mattered, so a lot of clients bought stoneware products: very nice, but less durable than porcelain. With today’s developments we can easily combine the reactive glazes with a porcelain base that is also nice and strong.”

At a time when everything is moving at such a fast pace, another trend is to frequently change not just the menu, which has now become something very seasonal, but also the place setting. “We see that hospitality owners are buying lower volumes of tableware but combined with the food they have on the menu, so they buy less volume at one time, but they buy more often. We also see that they want to have novelty solutions at all times.”

The best-selling ranges of this company, which mainly exports to France, Spain and the Middle East, include collections that combine nice design with a two-year warranty against chipping.